“The drawings aren’t really the point. It’s the looking. Through sketching, you start noticing things you’d walk straight past – shadows falling across a path, a curve in the river, little passing moments that feel more interesting than the obvious view.”
Lewis Noble, newsletter 2/4/26
If you feel getting a result is the ultimate goal of drawing, a finished drawing to hold that you’re pleased with and happy to show others, you’re missing out. That’s but one chapter in the book of drawing.
The activity of drawing, the doing, the looking and translating into marks on paper, that’s several chapters. Drawings about what you’re looking at without trying to be a human camera are some of the most interesting, both in their creation and result.
What does it matter that I edited out the middle bit of the view so that the top and bottom buildings would fit on this piece of paper? I wasn’t looking at the grassy bank, I was looking at the rooftops, walls, chimneys.
Edited to add: this is about drawing from observation not imagination, drawings focusing on the looking not photorealistic representation.
Love it! Who needs all the other details that you don’t need, right?!